February 28, 2009

The Internet is a global network of interconnected computers, enabling users to share information along multiple channels. Typically, a computer that connects to the Internet can access information from a vast array of available servers and other computers by moving information from them to the computer’s local memory. The same connection allows that computer to send information to servers on the network; that information is in turn accessed and potentially modified by a variety of other interconnected computers. A majority of widely accessible information on the Internet consists of inter-linked hypertext documents and other resources of the World Wide Web (WWW). Computer users typically manage sent and received information with web browsers; other software for users’ interface with computer networks includes specialized programs for electronic mal, online chat, file transfer and file sharing.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, prior to the widespread inter-networking that led to the Internet, most communication networks were limited in that they only allowed communications between the stations on the network. Some networks had gateways or bridges between them, but these bridges were often limited or built specifically for a single use. One prevalent computer networking method was based on the central mainframe method, simply allowing its terminals to be connected via long leased lines. This method was used in the 1950s by Project RAND to support researchers such as Herbert Simon, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when collaborating across the continent with researchers in Sullivan, Illinois, on automated theorem proving and artificial intelligence.

I’m in two minds about it.
On one hand I think its a fabulous mine of information where people can voice their opinions to billions of others and make great aquaintances with some really nice personalities.
On the other I think it can be a disturbing seedy world with people promoting and selling junk populated by the kind of people that you hope never sit next to you on the train.

February 28, 2009

I think it is important to note that there is a mistake in the assertion of the column, yes, some music downloaded from the Internet, some pictures taken from the Internet, some texts downloaded from the Internet are illegal, they do not respect the legal framework of copyright, but this can not be a general assertion. Some of us believe that a culture of sharing is possible, and to support it there are legal remedies as the so called free licences, but we must also think of “legal exceptions”, “public domain” and many other aspects of cultural content that should remain outside that legal framework, but we might come back to this soon.

When I research an article, I normally send 30 or so emails to friends and acquaintances asking for opinions and anecdotes. I usually receive 10-20 in reply. But not so on this subject! I sent 36 emails requesting opinions and facts on free music downloading from the Net. I stated that I planned to adopt the viewpoint of devil’s advocate: free Internet downloads are good for the music industry and its artists.

February 28, 2009

I think is a process whereby information is encoded and imparted by a sender to a receiver via a channel/medium.The receiver then decodes the message and gives the sender a feedback. Communication requires that all parties have an area of communicative commonality.

Communication is a ‘two way’ process. When you communicate you perceive the other persons responses and react with your own thoughts and feelings. It is only by paying attention to the other person that you have any idea about what to say or do next.

When good communication is missing, health professionals can misunderstand or be ignorant of patients needs and expectations; furthermore patients may not understand their rights and the choices available to them.

February 25, 2009

Hans Rosling (b.1948 in Uppsala, Sweden) is Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institutet and Director of the Gapminder Foundation, which developed the Trendalyzer software system. From 1967 to 1974 he studied statistics and medicine at Uppsala University, and in 1972 he studied public health at St John’s Medical College, Bangalore. He became a licenced physician in 1976 and from 1979 to 1981 he served as District Medical Officer in Nacala in northern Mozambique.

On 21 August 1981, he discovered an outbreak of a formerly unknown paralytic disease and the investigations that followed earned him a . degree at Uppsala University in 1986. He spent two decades studying outbreaks of this disease in remote rural areas across Africa and supervised more than 10 PhD students. His research group named the new disease konzo, the local designation by the first affected population. Outbreaks occur among hunger stricken rural populations in Africa where a diet dominated by insufficiently processed cassava results in simultaneous malnutrition and high dietary cyanide intake.

February 24, 2009

STEFAN SAGMEISTER (1962-) is among today’s most important graphic designers. Born in Austria, he now lives and works in New York. His long-standing collaborators include the AIGA and musicians, David Byrne and Lou Reed.

When Stefan Sagmeister was invited to design the poster for an AIGA lecture he was giving on the campus at Cranbrook near Detroit, he asked his assistant to carve the details on to his torso with an X-acto knife and photographed the result. Sunning himself on a beach the following summer, Sagmeister noticed traces of the poster text rising in pink as his flesh tanned.

Now a graphic icon of the 1990s, that 1999 AIGA Detroit poster typifies Stefan Sagmeister’s style. Striking to the point of sensationalism and humorous but in such an unsettling way that it’s nearly, but not quite unacceptable, his work mixes sexuality with wit and a whiff of the sinister. Sagmeister’s technique is often simple to the point of banality: from slashing D-I-Y text into his own skin for the AIGA Detroit poster, to spelling out words with roughly cut strips of white cloth for a 1999 brochure for his girlfriend, the fashion designer, Anni Kuan. The strength of his work lies in his ability to conceptualise: to come up with potent, original, stunningly appropriate ideas.

Born in Bregenz, a quiet town in the Austrian Alps, in 1962, Sagmeister studied engineering after high school, but switched to graphic design after working on illustrations and lay-outs for Alphorn, a left-wing magazine. The first of his D-I-Y graphic exercises was a poster publicising Alphorn’s Anarchy issue for which he persuaded fellow students to lie down in the playground in the shape of the letter A and photographed them from the school roof.